


Everyone Wants a Show (we don’t want to see the truth)

by fatedfeathers



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, No Dialogue, Post s2 finale, gratuitous use of the Peter Nureyev alias generator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-11-02 05:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20638460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatedfeathers/pseuds/fatedfeathers
Summary: This was why he didn’t tell people, why he didn’t make connections, why he didn’t let himself be Peter anymore. Peter always got hurt, always got abandoned and left behind.





	Everyone Wants a Show (we don’t want to see the truth)

**Author's Note:**

> What’s up Penumbra fandom did y’all miss me? I’m back with some of my weird stream-of-conscious introspection character study angst fic that no one but me asked for!
> 
> Title from Thief by Imagine Dragons

There was something…  _ almost, _ between falling asleep together in a hotel room in Olympus Mons and waking up alone in the same bed. Something he couldn’t quite remember, half asleep imaginings or half awake dreamings. But there was something  _ almost _ about it that gnawed away at the pit of his stomach when he dwelled upon it too long.

This was why he didn’t tell people, why he didn’t make connections, why he didn’t let himself be  _ Peter  _ anymore. Peter always got hurt, always got abandoned and left behind. Better to be Perseus Shah, Rex Glass, Duke Rose, be Nyx Wire—who hadn’t even  _ heard _ of one Juno Steel, let alone ever been to Mars.

And when Nyx had to be, appropriately, nixed, he became Valentine Spade, Elias Hill, Hyacinth Brook, Priam Gold and kept running from his problems  _ (the same as you always do, you put it behind you and run and never look back it’s not healthy, a voice in the back of his head whispered. he ignored it and kept pushing away the hurt until-) _

Comet Silver had never really been a persona he put much thought into. He needed a face and a name, and he obviously couldn’t use his own name, so he let Silver be the one he took when he put out feelers. Officially, Silver was who you got in contact with if you needed any number of his aliases. Unofficially, well. He just didn’t exist. And never did anyone request  _ Comet’s _ help with anything other than contacting his clients; but who was he to turn down  _ Buddy Aurinko? _ Of course he would be there.

He didn’t try to hide the stars from his eyes upon meeting Buddy and Vespa; Silver might have been a professional, but even a professional is prone to a little excitement meeting people of talent and renown of the level of those two. And Peter—no. And  _ he _ had always been a fan of theirs; their love for one another, their heists, their skill and their story. And now they were back, and he got to meet them  _ in person. _

Sikuliaq was another thing entirely. They had a bit of a… personal dispute, about certain things. Like, say, the rightful ownership of the Ruby 7. But they could be civil; Comet was, after all, a professional.

What he hadn’t expected was to be told they were still waiting for two more members of their team. Four skilled thieves—or, as Silver kept insisting, three skilled thieves and one contact—wasn’t enough; they still had to wait, but Buddy and Vespa wouldn’t tell him who they were waiting for and he wouldn’t ask Sikuliaq on principle. So he waited, did Silver’s best to help around the ship—halfway decent at cleaning, more likely to pocket clutter or cause messes than clean them, but when he set to it he could clean the ship the fastest, but absolutely miserable at cooking—and waited for the mystery pair to arrive.

Or, apparently, waited for them to  _ call _ and say they wanted to come. The other three seemed certain it would happen, but he—and Silver, by extension—began to have his doubts.

Until Sikuliaq got the comms message. From Mars. And Pet—and his heart dropped out of his chest.

He had been walking around and playing pretend at being ok, at being  _ human, _ for so long that he had nearly convinced himself that his half-numb state of being was… fine, or whatever passed for it. It was nothing compared to the staticky nothingness that fell like a blanket over him, muffling his senses, when he realized he would have to come face to face with everything he’d been avoiding for the past year.

And when he, Buddy, and Vespa gathered at the loading bay to greet their newest recruits and the hatch opened, the static blanket turned to ice, his blood running chilled and crystalline through his veins. Of all the people on Mars, of all the criminals, of course his luck had to run out.

“Hello Juno. It’s been a while.”

His head was spinning, his world was shaken to the core, but his voice was strong and steady. He would fake it till he made it, as he did everything. He could pretend to be fine, as his universe spun towards a black hole and the inevitable drew close.

But he would play nice, act fine, act normal until he reached the point of no return, or Juno made the first move.


End file.
